• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, 5 hours ago

Brave Michael J. Fox brought class and courage to the Emmy Awards Monday night on NBC.

His acceptance speech after receiving the 2026 Bob Hope Humanitarian Award was the undisputed highlight of the three-hour show.

The award was established by the Television Academy in 2002 and Fox was only the seventh recipient.

The beloved star of “Family Ties,” “Spin City” and the “Back to the Future” movie series was awarded for his tireless work on behalf of Parkinson’s Disease research. 

Fox, now 65, was 29 when he was diagnosed with early-onset Parkinson’s in 1991. Since then, even as the disease worsened, he continued to act, while also throwing himself into working towards a Parkinson’s cure.

Fox appeared on stage at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles to receive the award from Julianna Margulies. The two had worked together on “The Good Wife.”

He was in a wheelchair and showed obvious signs of the progressive effects of Parkinson’s in his appearance and speech.

But the high spirits for which he has always been known were also on full display. In his speech, he paid tribute to his family and to Bob Hope, the 20th-century entertainer who was sometimes called “America’s Comedian.”

“My parents were born during the Great Depression,” Fox said. “To them, Bob was more than an entertainer. He was a selfless champion of soldiers [and] military families like mine for decades.”

“Christmases, Thanksgivings [and] other holidays where he could have been celebrating with his family, he was showing up for the troops in Berlin, Saigon [and] the Middle East, with a turkey leg and a gold club,” Fox continued.

“I learned from his example. When it starts to get tough, you show up, you help, and if you get a little joy while you’re doing it, that’s even better. I couldn’t have known how these lessons would resonate in my own life,” he said.

“I set out to advocate for patients’ needs and raise money and search for a cure,” Fox said at the Emmys.

“I found brilliant people to lead the effort for me and vowed to fund the best science in the world. I am proud of the progress we’ve made to benefit Parkinson’s patients and families. I am deeply grateful to our staff who make that possible,” Fox said.

The speech was made even more poignant by his evident struggle to deliver it in the first place. Understandably, his voice was halting and, at times, difficult to make out what he was saying. 

But his courage made up for all that as he received two standing ovations and stole the show. 

Overall, the 78th annual Emmys moved right along through its three-hour length. But viewer fatigue set in during the show’s third hour, which is not uncommon for televised awards shows.

One reason for a perceptible lag in the third hour was the fact that almost all of the night’s most important awards were given in the first and second hours, while the Best Comedy and Best Drama awards were bestowed at the end of the show.

The winners were the Apple TV comedy “Widow’s Bay” and the HBO hospital drama “The Pitt.”

“Widow’s Bay” was the runaway Emmy winner Monday night, including a Best Lead Actor in a Comedy award for Matthew Rhys, plus awards for Supporting Actor (Stephen Root), Supporting Actress (Kate O’Flynn), Directing (Hiro Murai) and Writing (series creator Katie Dippold).

Rhys also won an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series for “The Beast in Me” (Netflix), making him the first actor in Emmy history to win two acting Emmys on the same night.

Jean Smart also had a night of personal milestones. She won her fifth consecutive Lead Actress in a Comedy award for her lead role in “Hacks,” tying Don Knotts, who won Best Actor Emmys for five straight years for playing Barney Fife, and Candice Bergen for “Murphy Brown.”

Julia Louis-Dreyfus holds the consecutive-Emmy award record with six Emmys for the lead role in “Veep.”

Smart tied Louis-Dreyfus in one category, however. Smart’s Emmy Monday night gave her a total of eight Emmys over the course of her career -- the same number as Louis-Dreyfus and Cloris Leachman.

Other highlights included comedian John Mulaney’s monologue before he presented Noah Wyle with the Lead Actor in a Drama Series award for “The Pitt”; and Sally Field’s win for Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series for “Remarkably Bright Creatures” (Netflix).

Another standout was the appearance on stage of three stars of the original “Charlie’s Angels” to mark the show’s 50th anniversary -- Jaclyn Smith, 80, Kate Jackson, 77, and Cheryl Ladd, 75. 

The three presented the Best Drama Emmy and also brought some old-school glamor to the show.

Indeed, glamor was the order of the day at the Emmys, starting with the show’s host, Mariska Hargitay, who went through at least a dozen wardrobe changes throughout the show.

She was a great host, but she was saddled with second-rate comedy material that even included a tasteless penis joke in her opening monologue that is the stuff of third-rate sitcoms.

One notable characteristic of Monday’s show was the virtual absence of divisive political speechmaking. 

In fact, one of the classiest acceptance speeches of the night came from Stephen Colbert, whose CBS “Late Show” won this year’s Emmy for Best Variety Series.

Instead of going off on President Trump, as might have been expected, Colbert used his speech time to graciously thank his staff at the show, many of whom joined him on stage.

He also thanked the industry and his viewing audience for giving him the opportunity to have the kind of career that he has had.